Poor Jimmy A. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, so it seems. If the ball doesn't swing, then he gets labelled as a bowling all-you-can-eat buffet. When it does, and he produces the sort of virtuoso performance that graced the first Test, he gets called the equivalent of the flat-track batting bully. The inability of some to recognise and applaud extreme excellence never fails to astound me.

So let me try to put things in perspective. Anderson was given a set of circumstances that might have been on his personal wish list: Ground with a reputation for swing? Check; Dukes conker? Check; Lush outfield to maintain shine? Check; Hard-wicket batsmen, inexperienced against the first two? Check; Mind-blowing catching? Check.

Funny thing, though, precisely the same set of circumstances were given to Stuart Broad, who the previous week had produced an eight-wicket spell for Nottinghamshire in which, according to his team-mate Graeme Swann, he had hooped it around like never before and, in part because of the length he chose to bowl, he scarcely got the ball off the straight. In other words, giving someone the tools for the job in no way means the job will get done.

Vic Marks was right the other day in suggesting that Anderson's bowling was reminiscent of Ian Botham's when he has lean, young and whippy (and don't forget that Vic was privy to it more than most); perhaps the most devastating spell of its kind since he destroyed Pakistan at Lord's in 1978 with a tally of eight for 34. I still have a recollection of a ball Botham bowled to Haroon Rashid, a mirror image of that with which Mohammad Aamer dismissed Mitchell Johnson recently. It went down the line of leg stump, before swinging sharply away, first to turn the batsman inside out, and then pluck out the off pole.

Botham was – and Anderson is – a swing bowler through and through and at this point we should be clear about the distinction between that and someone who can swing the ball. It is not just nit-picking semantics. Matthew Hoggard, say, could swing the ball, but he did so on his action, with a lowish arm, and one way only. A genuine swing bowler is a manipulator of the ball. He can work it this way and that at will with a tilt of the wrist and little more. He uses swing as a spinner does variations. Botham could do this and so too could Richard Ellison and the Worcestershire bowler Phil Newport, who had a brief flirtation with the England side.

So how does it work? Forget the physics of it, which talk of airflow and such like. How does a swing bowler maximise what he is given? We can start with the ball, which has a bearing only up to a point. The swing bowler will pick the most comfortable ball from a box, seems to fit snugly – they are all the same size really – and with a dark colour.

As the same dye is used for all, I always put this latter down to the capacity of the leather to absorb it, and so perhaps polish up better. But some dark balls do not swing while the cherry red ones do. Some appear identical and react differently. When John Lever bowled India out in Delhi, it was a changed ball that did the damage, swinging hugely from the first delivery after the original had gone relentlessly straight. Personally, I think the seam must be the major factor throughout. We suspect atmospheric conditions affect it, too, but no one quite knows why because again it is inconsistent. Talk is of the air being "heavy' when cloud rolls in, but generally cloud comes with low pressure. It is contradictory.

What matters above all is technique. The last point of contact the swing bowler has with the ball is with the tip of the middle finger, so everything has to be geared to getting this millisecond correct. Subsequent swing, then, is a function of what happens immediately before this. For the ball to swing either way in a controllable fashion, the seam has to be perfectly upright, as a rudder if you will, something that Anderson manages to perfection.

To aid this, it is vital to get maximum backward rotation on the ball, a sort of gyroscopic effect that holds it upright and this only comes from a loose rather than rigid wrist action. Try this: let your bowling arm drop loosely to your side and see how naturally far apart are the index and middle finger. That is how it should be on the ball. Spread them further apart or closer and immediately feel the tension in the back of the hand and forearm. Swing bowling should be tension free. I licked my middle finger before each delivery to get a tackiness for extra purchase. A "caressing" grip is next. Watch how loosely Mohammad Asif holds the ball. It allows a wrist flick for more rotation.

Next I believe a neutral action helps, somewhere between chest and side on, this so variations need not be telegraphed. Finally, some visualisation. The ball has to have a path carved into the air, if you like, preferably into a slight breeze from fine leg. Imagine how a golfer might work to shape a draw or fade round an obstacle and that is how a swing bowler sends the ball down the pitch. It is as if it is being forced round an obstacle.